PEORIA, Ariz.  The promise paired with three power right-handers – all of them 6-foot-6 or taller – fronting a rotation has a lot to do with national pundits pegging the Padres as a chic pick to click in 2014.

One problem: Pitching coach Darren Balsley believes that kind of talk is shortchanging Ian Kennedy, a 6-foot flat veteran with a fastball that can touch 90 mph.

On a good day, that is.

Still, even coming off a down year, Kennedy didn’t need more “stuff” than that to win 21 games and strike out nearly 200 batters while fashioning 2.88 ERA in his breakout 2011 season.

“Velocity doesn’t matter; he can still throw his fastball by guys,” Balsley said Friday as the Padres’ pitchers walked off the practice fields following their first day of workouts. “It doesn’t matter if he’s throwing his heater by guys and it’s 96 or if it’s 89. He has that deception to get a ball by a guy, so I do consider Ian a power pitcher.

“With Ian, the only goal is to get him back to what he used to be, and I think he accomplished that last year at the end of the season.”

At the very least, Ian’s two-month stay in San Diego was a step in the right direction.

After watching his numbers slip each of the two seasons following that banner 2011 campaign, Kennedy began to find his footing with the Padres after the Diamondbacks shipped him out of town for left-handed reliever Joe Thatcher and minor league pitcher Matt Stites.

His ERA was nearly a run better in his 10 starts with the Padres. His strikeout rate also tracked a little higher – from 7.8 per nine innings to 8.6 – and his WHIP began to trend downward, likely the result of a much-needed change of scenery after Kennedy started 2013 with a 5.23 ERA.

After all, Balsley wasn’t rewriting the Pitching 101 manual when he suggested Kennedy stay back on the rubber a tick longer to allow him to finish his leg kick.

“I was cutting it short and pushing the ball,” Kennedy said. “Everything I did was up.”

The numbers bear that out.

A year after throwing 200 innings for the first time – 222 to be exact – Kennedy’s WHIP soared from 1.09 in 2011 to 1.30 in 2012 to 1.40 last season. His walk rates also climbed from 2.2 per nine innings three years ago to 3.6 in 2013 and his homer rate spiked from 0.8 per nine innings in 2011 to 1.3 last season.

The reason wasn’t exactly a mystery, either. Balsley and Padres manager Bud Black discussed it on occasion in the opposing dugout as Kennedy’s stock plummeted from a Cy Young candidate in 2011 to trade bait.

“I had a pretty good idea,” Balsley said, adding that the trade “presented more of an opportunity to change because he knew he needed to get better. New team, new city, fresh start – and work on what you used to do."